ABSTRACT
In our discussions of the alien and women in modern Japanese fantasy we have seen a variety of different and sometimes contradictory impulses at work. On the one hand, we have seen the fantastic used as a wish-fulfillment strategy. In the prewar period, for example, fantasy women were often seen as saviors, rescuing the male from the complexities of modernity. More rarely, the alien has also fulfilled that function, particularly in the form of Kawabata’s ghosts, who transport his protagonists into a better world or compensate them for the disappointments of the real world.
